Ideas Have Consequences

by Richard M. Weaver

Weaver’s enemy was modernity.

The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence.

It was William of Occam who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence.

One comes thus by clear deduction to the corollary of the natural goodness of man.

it is not the mysterious fact of the world’s existence which interests the new man but explanations of how the world works.

Yet to establish the fact of decadence is the most pressing duty of our time because,

we cannot combat those who have fallen prey to hysterical optimism.

As the abundance for simple living is replaced by the scarcity for complex living, it seems that in some way not yet explained we have formalized prosperity until it is for most people only a figment of the imagination.